This is one more story connected to the museum I work at, although it doesn't take place at that site. First though, I'll give a little history of the area to help put this story in context.
My hometown was settled by Irish immigrants in the 1840's. Back then there was a lot of hatred between Irish Catholics and Protestants, and many of the immigrants brought this hatred with them when the settled in Canada.
In my town this suspicion and hatred was the base for a feud that would culminate in the murder of five members of a family. This family was well known in life, and famous in death. For a long time, nobody would speak about what had happened, but recently it's become a tourist magnet. So the museum began to do tours of the town that included a stop at the site of the murders, which is now a private residence. The owner of the house gives a little talk about what happened, and takes you around the property. As many people have probably assumed, this place is reportedly well and truly haunted.
On my second day of working at the museum I had to take a group of grade tens on this tour. I was excited because I had never had the chance to go to the house before, but I was also nervous because, well, it was my SECOND day on the job. I had also heard enough ghost stories about the place to scare me. In fact, I told my Mom the night before the tour "If I see any ghosts I'm going to quit!" She just laughed. If you've read my other stories about the museum you'll see how pointless that threat turned out to be.
The day of the tour went well. We drove around; I did my spiel, than we arrived at the homestead for the main part of the story. The owner had the group stand about where the house of the murdered family used to be, and told his story. I was in the back of the group, about ten feet from where a young man, only a few years older than me, had been stabbed and beaten to death.
As the owner began to describe the actual murder, I became cold. Not just a chill, it felt as though it had gone from a nice spring day to below freezing. I began to shiver and goose bumps broke out on my arms and legs. A moment later the temperature was back to normal, and no one else seemed to have felt anything. Nothing else happened that day that was out of the ordinary, so I decided to ignore it.
A few weeks later I was doing another tour with another group of grade tens (57 of the little darlings). This time, since I already knew the story being told I didn't pay much attention. I was again, standing in the back of the crowd. Being short, I couldn't see over the kids and anybody on the other side of the group wouldn't have been able to see me.
As the story was being told, I looked around, admiring the flower gardens. I then looked over at the house. Part of this house was built about a year after the murders, by the surviving sons. It had been added on to over the years, but it was the old part I looked at. In the ground floor window, a man was looking back at me. He was there for a few seconds and then disappeared. I stood in the back of the group saying "Ah...gh...ba...ga..." Nobody heard me hyperventilating.
I went over to the other tour guide and told her what I saw. She said it was probably the lady who lived there. Now he was only in the window for a few seconds, but it was long enough for me to see that it wasn't a woman. I tried to figure out what it could have been. Trick of the light? Overactive imagination? I also tried to ignore the fact that the man, young and with fair hair, looked an awful lot like the man who had been murdered there over a hundred and twenty years before.
While I was thinking this over, the group was heading to the old barn. Part of this barn predates the murders and is apparently a good spot for catching strange things on film. The kids took pictures, and then we all left the barn. As I was walking out I felt a hand on my back. Now, I just guessed it was one of the home owners, or the other tour guide, so I looked back to say something. Yeah, you guessed, there was no one there. I was the last one to leave the barn.
There are many other ghost stories connected to this place, but since they did not happen to me, it's not my place to tell them. If anyone wants to know more, or is going to be in Southern Ontario and wants to actually do the tour, you can e-mail me and I'll pass on the relative information.
W.
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